


And Our Troubles Out Of Sight

by Meskeet



Series: h/c bingo fills 2017 [2]
Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Isolation, Panic Attacks, Winter, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 06:38:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13071216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meskeet/pseuds/Meskeet
Summary: For now, her and Joel are the only living things in this entire neighborhood. Well, her, Joel, and the raccoon that she had found in the attic and thought was a Stalker when it had burst into sight. Ellie had been too surprised to kill it at the time.





	And Our Troubles Out Of Sight

**Author's Note:**

> For the 'isolation' prompt on my hc_bingo square, since I love this game with all my heart and I've been wanting to write for it. Yep, that's a Christmassy title for in a no way Christmas related fic.

The garage door is bolted shut for the night, the heavy chain Ellie’s been using to secure it tying it in place. The lock she used is almost as big as her hand and probably weighs just as much: the first week or so, it had been a comfort to latch it in place.

She’s safe, she reminds herself. _Joel’s_ safe, for the moment if nothing else. There’s nothing short of a truck that could break through those doors and, for now, her and Joel are the only living things in this entire neighborhood. Well, her, Joel, and the raccoon that she had found in the attic and thought was a Stalker when it had burst into sight. Ellie had been too surprised to kill it at the time.

“Hey, Joel,” she says quietly, like she always does. Joel doesn’t answer, even when she dumps her bow and arrows by the door and kicks off her shoes with a loud clatter. Even when Callus shifts impatiently on his feet, shaking his head and sending his reins flying through the air, Joel remains as still as the dead. Ellie approaches him cautiously, sighing with relief when she touches his fever-warm forehead and sees his breath hanging in the air above him.

 _Take off that damn saddle, will you?_ She imagines him saying. _If you take care of him, he’ll take care of you._

It’s tempting to slide to the ground beside Joel, to curl up and go to sleep – but there’s work to be done. Ellie makes a face at him and heads to Callus. She shouldn’t just drop his tack on the ground, but she does, yanking the saddle and blanket off in a single movement. By this point, Callus is used to it and just whickers softly when she removes the bit from beneath his teeth. His bridle she hangs carefully on a nail set in the board next to the door and then, with a glare at Joel, she moves the saddle to the workbench nearby.

“Rest up,” she tells him, patting him on the flank. “Work to do tomorrow.”

Callus shakes his head again at her and Ellie frowns.

There’s a low moan from outside and Ellie shivers in a way that has nothing to do with the icy chill hanging in the air.

 _Not tonight_ , she wants to say, because she used her last can of broth this morning and didn’t find anything on the hunt. Ellie backs away from the garage, sinking down next to Joel and wrapping her arms around herself. She’s hungry and tired and _not tonight, please._

She can hear the too-quick rasp of her breath, an ache in the jagged scar on her arm. Callus shifts again, his shoes clicking against the concrete and pins his ears back. Something scrapes against the side of the door, a low rattle of breath as jagged nails skitter across the surface. Ellie reaches back, grips Joel’s too hot hand in her own –

“ _Shhh_ ,” she says, as though Joel will make a sound now when he hasn’t in weeks. The cold from the cement seeps through her thin pants, worming through her skin and down to her bones. Her other hand, she lays on Callus’ leg, as though she can will him to be still. She left her bow by the door to the house, Ellie remembers, and creeps on silent feet to it. The weight of the wood is a cold comfort to her.

Another low moan, higher in pitch – she thinks it’s a different Runner, although it may just be excited. Maybe it heard her. Maybe it’ll fling itself against the door until it forgets anything was here at all. Ellie smiles at the thought, fingers curling around her bow again. It would be so, so easy to shoot one lone Runner. A low chittering joins the moan, a harsh _click click click_ that Ellie almost expects to turn into a screech of anger. Ice crunches under their feet as they move, forming aimless, looping tracks that Callus and her will ride through in the morning. Ellie remains still.

The walls swim around her. _It’s not safe in here_ , she whispers, but it’s the only safety she has. Ellie’s never been claustrophobic, never been anything but willing to charge forward into the darkness, but maybe that’s the problem: it’s not crawling through a pipe to let Joel out, it’s not waiting in the dark of a cargo bay for a boost.

She’s just waiting.

For Joel to wake up, for the Runners to go away, for anything, really, because there’s nowhere to go. If she climbs the steps to the house, all she will see is them, circling. Waiting. Like she is.

 _“Shh,”_ she says again. Callus backs up, hooves clipping against the ground. His ears are still flat against his skulls, whites of his eyes showing as they roll. “Nowhere to go, buddy.”

The herd outside growls, _thump-thump-thumping_ their feet and limbs into the ice and the snow. A coyote screams outside and Ellie covers her ears as they take off with a wail of excitement. She doesn’t hear the coyote again.

There’s nowhere to go, not now. She can’t escape the rattle of Joel’s breath, a silent corpse she can’t leave behind. It’s another night to wait out, a claustrophobic nightmare full of her own hoarse breathing echoing against the walls until that’s all that’s left in the room, Ellie and her breath and shaking and the endless, biting cold. She covers her ears until all she hears is the pumping of her own blood, the _whoosh-whoosh_ of her heart thrumming in her ears quickly, quickly until the mad gallop starts to slow.

Ellie lowers her hands and traces the upraised scar on her arm, watches it catch the light and gleam back at her. She can see her pulse in her wrist, the faint twitch of muscle as she flexes her hand. Finally she tears her eyes away, reaches back and finds Joel, warm like nothing else is. Beside her, Callus drops his head against his shoulder, blowing moist breath across her skin until she pushes him away. It’s gone quiet again.

 _More arrows,_ she thinks distantly, pulling her pack into her lap. Yes, more arrows. For the runners, for the clicker – for anything else she stumbles across. Something has them disturbed, after all.

Wistfully, she thinks of the raccoon.

It would have made a good meal.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the r&r!


End file.
